Category: Activism

On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Shock waves from those deadly, unprovoked gunshots shook our country, my heart, my home. The next night, I participated in my first steel pan class, offered in a local community center by the Seattle Steel Pan Project. The bright sounds and brilliant …

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash Early last week, our 20-year-old furnace stopped working. We bought a replacement and had it installed, only to find that it didn’t work either. A second replacement—a different model—was installed today. By then, we had improvised with space heaters for a week, trying to stay warm without overwhelming the …

This fall, my wife Martha and I spent a month living in an apartment in Riverdale, a neighborhood in the North Bronx, New York, a few miles north of Washington Heights, where our younger son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live. We tried out the possibility of moving to New York City to be closer to them. …

We have more power than we know. It’s time to use it. I frequently dream about events before they happen. Sometimes I’ll have a frightening dream before a terrible event; I wrote here about a dream I had before Trump was elected the first time. And sometimes the images that come are beautiful and encouraging, …

This week I dreamed about my mother. And I dreamed about war. I am in a car with my mother, running errands. I am driving, and she sits in the passenger seat. She’s young, with a beautiful face and dark, curly hair. As I look at her, I see clearly the ways I look like …

This is a love letter to community—mine, yours, all of ours. Last night, I went with my wife and friends to a Seattle Town Hall event that featured Alison Bechdel. If you don’t know her work, you have a wonderful surprise awaiting you! In the early 1980s, she created the comic strip “Dykes to Watch …

Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash I started learning to negotiate the ocean when I could barely walk. Every summer, my parents rented a cottage for our family on the South Jersey shore for two weeks. We stayed in a little town called Avalon, which is also the name of a magical, mystical island in …

Imbolc, observed around February 1, is a time of new beginnings and initiation. Here in the US, we are undergoing a huge, painful initiation, living under a newly empowered oligarchy that is intent on destroying our democracy, the rule of law, and the institutions of civil society. It is easy to feel that we are …

Moreton Bay Fig Tree, Balboa Park, San Diego, CA   “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Antidotes for Fear” from his book Strength …

Samhain is the gateway to the darkest three months of the year, in the physical world and the world of spirit. Between now and Winter Solstice, we notice and feel the days shorten and the nights lengthen. If we follow the rhythm of the seasons, we hunker down, stay warm, spend more time indoors. If …